Meet Local Vendor: Full fork farm

For the past 200 years, the land on Dutton Rd. in China, Maine with Dutton Pond nearby has been used as farmland in one way or another. For the passerby four years ago, to see another farmer buy the old farmhouse and surrounding land to continue the farming tradition would most likely have been of little note. The new owner, though, would begin to operate with perhaps an unnoticeable, yet drastically different ideology than the past few decades.

Historically, the farm has been cultivated and used with a conventional mindset. Anson Biller, founder and owner of the now Full Fork Farm, has set out to change that as many in the Maine farming community have. While many small-scale farms are set on pursuing MOFGA certification, Anson has a slightly different priority in his farming endeavor: creating a full circle farm. According to the farm’s website, this full circle farming process “looks toward and seeks to emulate earth’s natural cycles and processes.” One way Anson is incorporating this mindset into the everyday processes is through seed-saving. Every season he saves seed from the best plants to use for next year’s sowing. The benefit of this method is that he is able to cultivate plants with the best adaptations to Maine’s growing climate, including disease and pest resistant properties as well as colder weather hardiness. This can help ensure the integrity and availability of consistently healthy and hardy seed stock not only for his farm but for others’ farms, as well. While not the sole focus for Anson, another piece of full circle farming is organic practice that will not harm the flora and fauna even if on a larger scale. This year will be the first year that Full Fork can begin the official MOFGA certification process, but Anson’s organic practices are already drawing people from hours away to his U-Pick strawberry fields. The strawberries are a large piece of his sales every season, but he also offers summer greens, herbs, and veggies in surplus.

While Anson aims to grow his piece of the summer produce market by adding a couple acres to his strawberry patch and incorporating field rotation, his project this summer will be to plan out his winter greens growing processes. This market is largely untapped in Maine so Anson is planning on jumping right in with multiple types of caterpillar and high tunnels. Another market in which he is thinking of experimenting is U-Pick, organically grown canning tomatoes later this summer. So, keep your eyes peeled! There will always be something new happening on Full Fork Farm in the effort to attain stewardship-minded full-circle farming. This is exactly why we at Uncle Dean’s are excited to partner with these small, locally-run farmers!